An illustration from Puck mocking William Jennings Bryan and his whistle stop tour (1896)

It
started in the 1890s. Can their deployment offer us some kind of
historical perspective on the current election? Certainly the cutting
edge use of new media has been influential in presidential elections
of the last 125 years. Understanding this can offer some engaging
perspectives on campaign dynamics while distracting us from the more
fraught conflicts of personality and policy, which have generated a
deep sense of frustration among many of our colleagues. It was the
complex use of media in the 2004 and 2008 presidential elections––and
particularly Barack Obama’s successful use of the Internet as he
defeated Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primaries and then John
McCain in the general elections––that sent me back to the 1890s.

If
the use of new media for presidential campaigning really began in the
long 1890s, no one had examined it systematically. As I learned in
researching and writing Politicking
and Emergent Media: US Presidential Elections of the 1890s, John
L. Wheeler originated the campaign documentary in 1888: his
evening-length illustrated lecture, The
Tariff Illustrated focused
on the preeminent issue of that election––the tariff (sound
familiar?) which was also closely tied to issues of jobs and
immigration. His program, seen by almost 175,000 people in the key
swing state of New York, was considered a crucial contributor to
Republican Benjamin’s Harrison’s victory over sitting president
Grover Cleveland.

Eight
years later, Republican candidates and their associates invested in
the American Mutoscope Company, which would soon become the foremost
motion picture company in the world. The Republican National
Committee sponsored the official premiere of its biograph projector
in October 1896, showing McKinley
at Home at Hammerstein’s
Olympia Music Hall in New York City. Republican presidential
candidate William McKinley was conducting a front porch campaign:
apparently the only way to get him to leave his hometown of Canton,
Ohio, was through the vehicle of projected motion pictures. The
screen has been Republican from the outset, declared Terry Ramsaye in
1926. And with a reality TV star as the current Republican
candidate––and movie star Ronald Reagan constantly evoked,
Ramsaye was both historically accurate and all too prescient. Obama
in this regard has been a remarkable exception.

So what are some of the historical
antecedents that resonate with present day politicking? Consider “the
newspaper of record.” The
New York Times was strongly
pro-Democratic in the 1890s. Nonetheless it railed against Democratic
presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan and his 1896 Free
Silver platform with the same ferocity that it now deploys against
Donald Trump.

Comparisons are always apt: the
issue-focused illustrated lectures on the tariff in 1888 and 1892
gave way to motion pictures that were issue free as Biograph’s
filmmakers surrounded McKinley
at Home with images of
America’s natural grandeur (the American Falls at Niagara), culture
(Joseph Jefferson in Rip van
Winkle) and technology (the
Empire State Express train). It appealed to viewers’ emotion rather
than their intellect. Reflecting on a more recent shift in new media,
we can see how Barack Obama’s YouTube channel was central to his
2008 campaign. That is where his “Yes We Can Speech,” following
his defeat in the New Hampshire primary, was posted and viewed by
millions of users. And YouTube was where will.i.am’s “Yes, We
Can” music video was also posted––undoubtedly the most potent
campaign song in the history of presidential politicking. Obama’s
opponents were rank amateurs by comparison. Eight years later
Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump may both have YouTube channels, but
the action has moved to Twitter. Trump has used Twitter aggressively
and in the first person. Clinton has used Twitter more cautiously,
typically as a pro-Hillary news aggregator. When Cruz finally
endorsed Trump (after the Donald had trashed his wife and father),
the Republican candidate graciously expressed his appreciation.
After Clinton was endorsed by the New
York Times, the endorsement
was simply posted to her Twitter page. Not only has Trump used
Twitter to dominate any number of news cycles, he seems largely
responsible for changing the way journalists now report the news.
Since Trump’s run for the presidency, reporters rarely call
relevant sources looking for a quote. They post pertinent tweets
instead.

Campaign songs were often popular in
the 1890s, but the level of interest fluctuated from election to
election. The American Protective Tariff League, the largest
political action committee in the 1890s, had sponsored Wheeler’s
tariff lecture in 1888 and 1892: in 1896, it featured sheet music for
campaign songs in the pages of its journal instead. These songs
often had an upbeat even utopic cast to their lyrics. In this they
anticipated the hundreds of campaign songs written on behalf of Obama
in 2008. Perhaps somewhat surprisingly such songs continued to appear
in 2012. Although songs related to the current campaign remain part
of the politicking landscape, they are fewer in number and
consistently satirize or mock one or even both of the candidates.
The mood—on both sides—has completely changed. Enjoy “You’re
A Mean One, Mr. Trump (Grinch Parody)” or “Liar
Liar Pants On Fire Hillary Song.” Randy Rainbow, a blogger and
Internet celebrity, offers numerous song parodies such as “The
Nasty Woman” and “GRAB 'EM BY THE P***Y! (Censored).

In a political universe with two such
different candidates, it can be helpful to note their frequent
symmetries. In September 1896, Abner McKinley, the candidate’s
brother, supervised the taking of McKinley
at Home, Canton, O. A mere
two days later, William Jennings Bryan showed up on Edison’s
doorstep for his cameo: Bryan
Train Scene, Orange, NJ.
Since Bryan was pioneering the whistle-stop tour, each candidate was
shown in his representative campaign mode (the Bryan film does not
appear to have survived). However, this apparent parallelism hides a
dirty trick. Norman Raff was one of the partners who owned the
Vitascope Company, which exhibited and distributed the Bryan film.
Raff was not only from Canton, Ohio, he was a personal friend of
McKinley. The Bryan film languished. Finally screened a week after
the McKinley program (it could have been shown much earlier), Bryan
Train Scene was embedded in
a program of comedies that included Wash
Day and Feeding
the Chickens.

In the current election we might note
that Gennifer Flowers opened a new Twitter account in May 2016,
around the time that Trump seemed a certain winner of the Republican
primaries. At the same time The
Daily Mail online posted an
updated profile of Flowers, which included her claims that Hillary
was bi-sexual. Meanwhile that same month Alicia Muchado, a former
Miss Universe who had been repeatedly criticized by Trump, became a
US citizen. In June she came out as a Hillary supporter. When Trump
taunted Clinton by threatening to bring Flowers to their first
debate, Clinton brought up his treatment of Muchado during the
debate—a provocation that worked very much in her favor. This time
the Republican was outplayed.

With our current presidential campaign
seemingly stuck in the gutter, it can be helpful to realize that
nothing is entirely new. When Democrat Grover Cleveland battled
Republican James Blaine for the presidency in 1884, Cleveland was
faced with a sex scandal. Republicans would chant: “"Ma,
Ma, Where's my Pa?” When he
won New York State by 1,000 votes, the Democrats had the final
retort: “Gone to the White House, ha, ha, ha.” Cleveland was
victorious because Blaine had his own problems with the 19th
century version of email. Letters were found which indicated that he
sold his influence while in Congress. One such letter concluded “Burn
this letter.” So the Democrats chanted “Burn, Burn, Burn this
letter”: Now Republicans mockingly sing ”Delete It” to the
sound of Michael Jackson’s “Beat It.”

People sometimes wonder why the 2016
election isn’t a blow out--like McKinley’s laugher in
1896––instead of a race that now seems close and filled with
uncertainty. Each candidate has weaknesses ––flaws that would be
fatal under other circumstances. Trump as a candidate may be the
William Jennings Bryan of the 1896 campaign but this election has
finally begun to look more like 1884. You can wonder if Chelsea
Clinton and Ivanka Trump will still be friends after this election,
or you can read Politicking
and Emergent Media and find
out how politicking and the world of commercial amusements began to
merge in the 1890s.